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Biography

Matt Quade is an Assistant Professor of Management at Baylor University. He earned his Ph.D. in Business Management from Oklahoma State University. Dr. Quade is passionate about impacting students at Baylor. He currently teaches Leadership & Organizational Behavior (MGT 3305) and Principled Leadership (MGT 4305).

Dr. Quade's research interests center on behavioral ethics in the workplace, both ethical and unethical behavior. He studies topics such as ethical leadership, ethical behavior comparisons, customer unethical behavior, abusive supervision, and ostracism. His research has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Organizational Psychology Review.

Prior to joining the faculty at Baylor, Dr. Quade held a visiting assistant professor position at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa. Before returning to school to work on his Ph.D., Dr. Quade worked for Chesapeake Energy.

Media Appearances

"In this study, we’re asking the questions: When and why are people ostracized – or excluded from the group – while at work?" said the study’s lead author, Matthew J. Quade, Ph.D., assistant professor of management in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business. "Our research contributes to an ongoing conversation regarding whether people’s competence is more important than morality within the context of organizations."...

Study Reveals Impact of Unethical Behavior on an Individual, According to Research from Oklahoma State University

Business Wire

2017-04-25

Oklahoma State University associate professor of management Rebecca Greenbaum with co-authors and former OSU PhD students Julena Bonner, assistant professor at Utah State University, and Matt Quade, assistant professor at Baylor University, investigated the aftermath of unethical behavior on an individual in their latest research...

We Don’t Shun Unethical Coworkers If They’re High Performers

Harvard Business Review

2016-05-25

Organizations are typically encouraged to take a hard stand against employees’ unethical behaviors. After all, scandals at Enron, Arthur Anderson, and AIG have shown that unethical behaviors can tarnish an organization’s reputation, lead to considerable monetary losses, and even result in legal prosecutions and corporate shutdowns...

Articles

Employee unethical behavior to shame as an indicator of self-image threat and exemplification as a form of self-image protection: The exacerbating role of supervisor bottom-line mentality | Journal of Applied Psychology

2017

Employee unethical behavior continues to be an area of interest as real-world business scandals persist. We investigate what happens after people engage in unethical behavior. Drawing from emotion theories (e.g., Tangney & Dearing, 2002) and the self-presentation literature (e.g., Leary & Miller, 2000), we first argue that people are socialized to experience shame after moral violations (Hypothesis 1). People then manage their shame and try to protect their self-images by engaging in exemplification behaviors (i.e., self-sacrificial behaviors that give the attribution of being a dedicated person; Hypothesis 2). We also examine the moderating role of supervisor bottom-line mentality (BLM; i.e., a supervisor's singular focus on pursuing bottom-line outcomes) in relation to our theoretical model. We argue that high supervisor BLM intensifies the employee unethical behavior to shame relationship (Hypothesis 3) and results in heightened exemplification as a way to protect one's self-image by portraying the self as a dedicated person who is worthy of association (Hypothesis 4). We test our theoretical model across 2 experimental studies and 2 field studies. Although our results provide general support for Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3, our results produced mixed findings for Hypothesis 4. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Employee Machiavellianism to unethical behavior: The role of abusive supervision as a trait activator | Journal of Management

Rebecca L Greenbaum, Aaron Hill, Mary B Mawritz, Matthew J Quade

2017

Drawing on trait activation theory, we examine a person-situation interactionist model to predict unethical behavior in organizations. In particular, we examine abusive supervision as a condition under which employee Machiavellianism (Mach) is activated and thus more strongly predicts unethical behavior. We offer a more fine-grained analysis of the Mach–trait activation process by specifically examining the interactive effect of each Mach dimension (viz., Distrust in Others, Desire for Control, Desire for Status, and Amoral Manipulation) ...

Examined through the lens of moral psychology, we investigate when and why employees’ unethical behaviors may be tolerated versus rejected. Specifically, we examine the interactive effect of employees’ unethical behaviors and job performance onto relationship conflict, and whether such conflict eventuates in workplace ostracism. Although employees’ unethical behaviors typically go against moral norms, high job performance may provide a motivated reason to ignore moral violations. In this regard, we predict that job performance will mitigate the relationship between employee unethical behavior and workplace ostracism, as mediated by relationship conflict. Study 1, a multisource field study, tests and provides support for Hypotheses 1 and 2. Study 2, also a multisource field study, provides support for our fully specified model. Study 3, a time-lagged field study, provides support for our theoretical model while controlling for employees’ negative affectivity and ethical environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

We integrate deontological ethics (Folger, 1998, 2001; Kant, 1785/1948, 1797/1991) with conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) to propose that an employee's repeated exposure to violations of moral principle can diminish the availability of resources to appropriately attend to other personal and work domains. In particular, we identify customer unethical behavior as a morally charged work demand that leads to a depletion of resources as captured by employee emotional exhaustion.

We present a theoretical model of amoral management in an effort to understand impediments to ethical leadership. We posit that a number of anticipated negative consequences of engaging in ethical leadership are positively related to amoral management and these relationships are strengthened by contextual factors. Furthermore, we argue that under certain conditions, amoral managers may experience enough moral motivation to engage in initial ethical leadership practices.

Stressful demands or helpful guidance? The role of display rules in Indian call centers | Journal of Vocational Behavior

2011

This paper utilizes conservation of resources (COR) theory and two of Hofstede's (1980) dimensions of culture (individualism and power distance) to examine the impact of display rules on job satisfaction and performance in an Indian call center sample. Contrary to findings in an American sample (Wilk & Moynihan, 2005), we proposed that due to cultural differences as well as differences in the nature of the job among representatives in an Indian call center, supervisory focus on display rules would reduce emotional exhaustion, and in turn, have positive consequences for employee performance and job satisfaction. Using multi-source data in a sample of 137 Indian call center representatives, results confirmed the hypothesized mediating effects of emotional exhaustion on performance and job satisfaction. Implications of these results for future cross-cultural research are presented.